Conservative debtslop
this post was submitted on 24 Mar 2026
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Are you working for fortune's marketing department?
What? Was this meant as a question to the OP?
This is an absolutely terrible fearmongering article about nothing that’s trying to sell austerity (except for when funding genocide).
The article doesn't cover potential impact, just an analogy to a household. Do we expect runaway inflation soon? The national debt had been going up as long as I remember. Was it propped up by international goodwill/trust/fear which we have now burned?
It’s a bullshit article pushed by a conservative organization that wants a balanced budget amendment.
It’s a roundabout way of hamstringing the federal government and killing social services.
You're not wrong. As a southern European I know what they mean with all this austerity bullshit, so fuck these cunts.
BUT.
The American economy really is in shambles. I read not long ago that Americans are bound to pay more than $1 trillion just in interests in 2026, and more than $2T (a year) in ten years. With the predictions of gdp growth (which imho are terribly optimistic since the entire us economy is right now hanging from the AI bubble) the interest rates are going to shoot up, or even get to the point where no one would lend money to the USA, unless something (like that amendment) gives some guarantees that you're gonna pay the debt back.
So my conclusion is that the US is gonna default on that debt sooner than later, and then it's just free fall from there. And it will try and drag the rest of the world with it.
We all are fucked.
...but it doesn't mean that being wasteful is a good thing, we obviously just have different ideas about what wasteful is than the fuckwit who wrote this article.
I think the ICE budget is wasteful. I think military spending has been out of fucking control since after 9/11, and it was pretty bad before that, too. We have money to spend hundreds of millions (more probably billions) on bombs and ammunition to kill innocent children in other countries, but sure, we don't have money for healthcare or schools or anything that provides social services.
So, he's not wrong he's just an asshole.
But, they’re (two authors) also wrong. The US is not insolvent. The treasury report did not say It was insolvent. For a country to be insolvent it would have to be unable or unwilling to pay its debts.
The article relies on readers not understanding how government financials work. They use a household metaphor which is completely irrelevant.
The article is propaganda pushing the “we need balanced budget” narrative which is a ridiculous way to run a government.
No one said being wasteful is a good thing. This article is not about how much or where money should be spent. They want to push a narrative that the government spends more than it can afford. This is false.
The real aim is to limit government spending on entitlements, social programs, arts, sciences, etc.
The US is not insolvent right now, but Trump has been making moves economically that could cripple either quantitative easing or quantitative tightening's economic use and success. I get that the article is trash and pushing an agenda, I get that normally this wouldn't be an issue because there's nothing theoretically wrong with quantitative easing or tightening. The issue I have is we are not in normal times and we're at real risk of losing the economic status that made our currency less vulnerable to budgetary concerns. I mean we have leaders who may either be stupid or may actually want things to crash so they institute a new post-democracy feudalistic era, and its hard to tell which sometimes. Because every serious economist has been raising alarm bells about this since before Trump got into office. We may not be broke now but it might be worth talking about the possibility when it feels our leaders are trying their damnedest to bankrupt and fleece us. When other countries stop buying US dollars and bonds and are selling them off due to seeing us as unstable and untrustworthy, I think budgeting actually becomes a serious problem, and that's on the table with how hard Trump is fucking up.
The national debt absolutely is being kept afloat by the dollar being the world's reserve currency. By fucking up our relationship with other nations Trump has put that status in jeopardy. Runaway inflation is a possible outcome but I don't know how probable compared to just "high inflation" which is coming either way. Anyway yes a lot of the dollars value comes from its status as a reserve currency. Once enough countries start dumping US dollars and bonds, it could really impact our ability to just print money our way out of things.
it could really impact our ability to just print money our way out of things.
Just for clarity a nation "printing money" usually means "issuing new currency into circulation without issuing new debt". The technical term for this is Quantitative Easing. Meaning every existing dollar is worth less because there are more new dollars but not new value. The USA absolutely did this during the Financial Crisis of 2009 and also a bit during COVID in 2020. However, for about 3 years, the USA was doing the opposite which was removing dollars from circulation, which drives up the value of each remaining dollar. This is called Quantitative Tightening The Federal Reserve was increasing the value of the USA this way. This is legit value increase, not an accounting trick.
However, this good economic policy of Quantitative Tightening stopped in Dec of 2025 and we're are back to "printing money" (Quantitative Easing).
Was it propped up by international goodwill/trust/fear which we have now burned?
Partially. US markets were loved globally due to perceived openness, depth, low geopolitical risk and liquidity for amounts that are difficult to move otherwise.
US tomfuckery has altered the risk profile so quickly and so badly, money is not able to measure risk meaningfully. To be clear, it's not a moral stance. Money is psychopathic. A lot of the US psychopathy suits money just fine. But there is a bit of a panic on geopolitical risks and global banks, insurance and pension funds are shifting stances as we speak. This hasn't been as damaging as it should have been, because it was dwarfed by older phenomena.
The other things fundamentally driving markets up is twofold. 1-The efficient retail investor who holds ETFs that just lets markets float on inflation like a rubber duck in a tub. As your dollar inflates, more dollars pour in as long as populations grow. You can piece together the difficult phase we're entering here. The idea of a market return at all is getting deeply suspect with low birthrates and aging societies.
2 - Petro State investments. Rich middle eastern oil producers know that their cash cow will die one day, and fossil fuels will be abandoned almost completely, except for chemical feedstocks. These countries have no other resources. They are building sovereign wealth funds, private and public where the money has to go into whatever the market has to offer. Price, value, ROI are all secondary to parking that cash somewhere where it can endure. The geopolitical risks of a fascist US empire are secondary to getting those countries' lifeblood, oil money, parked somewhere usefull. They are not exactly panicking, but they are desperate.
My grandfather rode a camel, my father rode a camel, I drive a Mercedes, my son drives a Land Rover, his son will drive a Land Rover, but his son will ride a camel.
- proverb
Not yet. So far, interest rates aren’t going crazy, meaning that investors expect to be paid and feel that government debt remains safe.
I don’t know of many households that own a money printer. The debt is a problem for sure, but so far, no signs of a meltdown nor the spending coming under control, and inflation at 2% seems to be something we’re giving up on.
They posted this yesterday too and there were no comments. It's all monopoly money I hope because if it's not we are in BIIIG trouble.
We are making new debt to pay the old debt plus interest. What could possibly go wrong?
Oh, we're definitely in BIIIG trouble.
While government budgets are more resilient than households, there is no getting past the fact that this is insane. Easily solved, too, with basic restraint paired with he taxation model used from 1944 to around 1965 .